Security at Indian missions in Afghanistan Herat enhanced

Security measures at Indian missions in Afghanistan have been enhanced with both ITBP and Afghan security forces strenthening the defence mechanisms in the wake of the recent attack on the Consulate in Herat.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force chief Subhas Goswami, who had recently visited that country for an on-the-spot assessment, said the Indian Embassy in Kabul and four Consulates in Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif have been brought under heightened security measures right after the attack on May 23.

"We have already strengthened our security and defences at all the missions we are guarding in Afghanistan including at Herat. Some more measures will be deployed soon.

"The Afghan police has already created more pickets and deployed round-the-clock security by mobile police squads outside the Herat consulate," Goswami, who returned from Afghanistan last week, told PTI.

In a related development, discussions were underway for shifting the location of the Consulate in Herat as the present location was not safe.

While the ITBP chief did not comment on it, sources in the security establishment said the possibility of moving the Consulate General of India (CGI) at Herat to a new and safer location was also being mulled and it is the prerogative of the Ministry of External Affairs.

The CGI is currently located in a built-up residential area in Herat.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/security-at-indian-missions-in-afghanistan-enhanced-114060301801_1.html

ITBP steps up vigil in Afghan missions

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has stepped vigil at the Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan where it has been deployed following the terrorist attack on Herat consulate early Friday morning.

Senior ITBP officials said a high alert has already been sounded at the Indian Embassy in Kabul and consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat.

All the four terrorists, who targeted the facility in Herat, were killed. Officials said one of the terrorists was killed by ITBP personnel while the others were neutralised by Afghan forces.

All Indian diplomatic staff is safe, they said. The ITBP, which renders perimeter security and access control duties at Indian installations besides being also trained to undertake special rescue and VIP security duties, had deployed an additional 79 commandos in Afghanistan in the past six months in addition to the 219 commandos already deployed there. Twenty-three personnel were deployed at the Herat facility.

The force had deployed more personnel after analysing the security situation in the country and the need for enhancing security at Indian installations.

A senior security official said a decision to increase the deployment was taken last year following the August 3 suicide bomb attack near the main consulate complex in Jalalabad, which killed 12 civilians. Sources said there was no weakness in the intelligence-sharing mechanism.

A security analysis done in the recent past showed that the Indian assets in Afghanistan were facing threats from not only al- Qaeda and the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, but also from smaller militant groups based in Pakistan.

Security officials are not discounting the possibility of terror networks trying to send a signal to India at a time that a new government under Narendra Modi is being sworn in.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/409193/itbp-steps-up-vigil-afghan.html